Among the things I like best in the book are: 1) the balance between the conceptual and the applied - both the theory and the management applications are covered, 2) The introduction to TI by the editors does a better-than-average job of setting up the field, and 3) the chapters by Herring on creating successful S&T Intelligence Programs, Tibbetts on technology scouting, and the future direction chapter by Ashton are among the best of their kind in the literature.

The things I liked less about the book (and there aren't many mate) include a bit too much introduction or overview material to basic CI in several of the chapters (the editors would have been helpful had they removed this overlap), and several of the chapters read far more like research studies and are too narrowly focussed to allow for much use(ex: Klavans chapter on research underlying TI, Penens' chapter on standards).

In sum, this book is clearly the best out there on technical intelligence for business. If this area is important to you, you will find value in many facets of this book. Being that the book was published in 1997, I hope that these authors will consider doing a follow-up so that we can see the field's development through the advances in the computer-mediated economy, globalization and evolving competition in S&T space.

Here Weaver surveys the literature of the South from the postbellum era and shows how a variety of writers, from soldiers,journalists, and lady diarists to poets, novelists, and scholars, regarded the traditions of civility, gentility, piety, natural order and individualistic self-sufficiency the South so valiantly defended in the War Between the States. Weaver, though he expresses a discernible point of view in this matter, does not let partisanship hamper his responsibilties as an honest scholar. If he sees some logical fissure in the thinking of one of his featured writers, he notes such unflinchingly. He also permits the voices of dissent from the prevailing orthodoxy in his study, most notably those of Walter Hines Page, George Washington Cable, and Henry Grady, among others, who would, to one extent or another, qualify as Southern liberals. Yet Weaver concludes that even these apostates found much to commend and preserve in the Southern tradition and thus did not denounce it totally.

This is a fascinating study, eminently and surprisingly readable, exhaustive but never exhausting, and well worth the time and attention of anyone truly and seriously interested in the "mind of the South."

He illuminates the Southern literary renaissance better than any of the poor attempts I've read by others.

Using a vast amount of material, published and unpublished, he presents in a very well organized fashion the South's own portrait of itself, as accurately as it has ever been presented.

The back cover of this addition compares Red Sky At Morning to The Catcher In The Rye. But there are few similarities that I can draw between the two books. Two struggling teenage boys, yes, but totally different personalities.

Catcher In The Rye - In short, Holden cracked. His brother died and Holden had so many emotional problems that he ended up in a mental hospital. (It's hard to catch but in last chapter Holden makes reference to "psychoanalyst guys." The entire story is not being told to the reader, but to a psychiatrist).

Red Sky At Morning - Josh is composed and has control over emotions. He is able to take charge of things and responsibility for other people, such as his mother. He narrates the book in a way that lets the reader understand that he has control. Things are said bluntly and firmly, he doesn't question anything.

Josh has control, Holden does not.

Being from the Southwest would probably help the reader's interest. There are some parts of the culture that could be new to the reader, (just as they are to from-Alabama-Josh). This isn't a standard required reading assignment for people who don't live in New Mexico just for that reason.

But for those of you who don't a) have to read it for a class or b) aren't comparing it to The Catcher In The Rye, it is a funny, touching book, with a little bit of a Southwestern twist. Setting is everything in this story, and it brings an atmosphere that can either captivate or discourage a new reader.

My opinion: give it a try, try to read with an open mind, and don't analyze too much.

My father read to me a passage from RED SKY AT MORNING when I was eleven. He was trying to get me interested in reading the book for myself and chose one of the more memorable scenes. I remember reading it and getting partway into the book and giving up. I just found nothing interesting to the story.

When I turned eighteen, I recalled the book my father told me about many years prior, and picked it up again. What a difference a few years made.

I've literally spent a year getting intimate with this novel. Memorizing every passage, and character development. It's a rare American novel that has very few equal. Many people compare RED SKY AT MORNING with J.D. Salinger's CATCHER IN THE RYE. Both are classic works of literature, and have a very honest look at adolescents, but that's where their similarities end. RED SKY AT MORNING is also a rich look in the life of not just one character, but an entire town as diverse as we are. We grow along-side with those from the small town called Corazon, Sagrado.

Frank Arnold decides to move his family from MOBILE, ALABAMA to a small town in New Mexico where Joshua (our Narrator) spends his Senior year of High School.

RED SKY AT MORNING can be seen as a coming of age story; but it's very much a coming of understanding story as well. The Arnolds came from a mostly White upper class background, where they were the Majority, but by moving to this small town, they are turned into the Minority overnight. Old habits die hard for some, but through exposure others come to accept those who are different.

This is a story that will make you laugh for days. It will make you cry the first time you read it, and the 9th time you read it. It's as bitter-sweet as life itself. I will never come across a book that has touched me as deeply as RED SKY AT MORNING.

Josh, himself, is a smart kid. Perhaps it's because his author is pretty sharp himself as youthful ignorance seems to be missing in much of Josh's observations and narration. Nevertheless, this story takes me back so smoothly, successfully and with such wonderful dead-pan humor that I made time for it almost every night before my eyes slammed shut until I'd read the whole thing. Now I ache for my kids to add this book to their reading experience. Once I read with incredulity of that Southern delicacy called Coca-Cola ham I was hooked and laughed my way through the rest of the book. I fervently hope my kids will too.

My wife is Mexican-American. I was always jealous of the kids that could speak Spanish in school and thus maintain their privacy in a crowd. That makes our kids half Mexican and our son speaks it regularly with his abuela. Our daughter, welllll... I delved into my Spanish/English dictionary, and my wife's knowledge, many times throughout this book because it thrills me to learn what I can of this language in an everyday setting. This being the case, it makes this book doubly good for those who have an interest (if you don't you ought to) in our country's "second" language. Even though many of the phrases may be from a era strange to us now it opens a wonderful and accurate picture into the Hispanic community in a much simpler time. This book will help those of us outside the Hipanic community understand the pride that comes from being born into it and the distinct priviledge of being welcomed into it.

Obviously the man who wrote these books - not forgetting poetry, critical essays and biographies - was himself quite complex. The life and soul of any party, though many were hurt by his scathing wit, Amis was scared of the dark and even being alone, and was apparently prone to sudden attacks of pure existential fear. The tendency to identify him with Lucky Jim, his first and most famous anti-hero, was strengthened by the gradually spreading awareness of the chronic womanising which broke up both his marriages. Yet it seems that Amis much regretted these domestic disasters, conceivably having failed to understand that marriage offers real, though easily overlooked, benefits to husbands as well as wives.

Bradford's thesis is simply that, denials to the contrary notwithstanding, all of Amis' fiction is drawn directly from his own life experience. All he manages to demonstrate, however, is the meaninglessness of this position. Of course every author draws on experience for material - otherwise all fiction would be fantasy. When Bradford is reduced to arguing that "Simona... has characteristics so completely different from Jane's as to virtually announce themselves as covering devices", the poverty of his basic idea is clearly revealed. If a character resembles anyone Amis ever met, he must have copied that character from real life. But if the character is completely different, the same inference is drawn.

Otherwise, the book is well written and evidently based on research as thorough as Amis' own (for a surprising rigour was one of his best qualities). This impression is hardly spoiled by occasional infelicities and repetitions - and at least when Bradford revisits the same text twice, he tells the same story each time. Perhaps the best thing about this book is that it will surely encourage any reader to get hold of Amis' novels and read them (or re-read them, as the case may be).

Is it evil to smile at the thought of how Amis would have fumed if he could have read the manuscript himself? Not really - it is the sort of joke he himself would have appreciated, and perhaps accompanied by his famous "crazy peasant" face.